This blog is about family, including those in my family tree, the primary focus, but also the family of faith, the family of community, and ultimately the family of man. It is a journey of discovery: Who they were, What they did (and Why), and When, Where, and How they lived.

Friday, February 9, 2018

In the news, Thursday, January 18, 2018

Information from some sites may not be reliable, or may not be vetted.Some sources may require subscription.

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from Asia Times Online

Nazarbayev plays ‘honest broker’ in new Great GameUS President Donald Trump this week deftly used American business to woo Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev to act as the “honest broker” in the new Great Game between the United States and rivals Russia and China. Nazarbayev prides himself on allowing his Central Asian nation to remain a “good neighbor” between an increasingly belligerent Russia under President Vladimir Putin and expansionist China under President Xi Jinping while at the same time remaining an ally and close friend of the United States.

US and China set to swap trade strategiesDonald Trump is flexing the United States’ economic muscle in East Asia by introducing a web of new-generation bilateral trade deals to contain China’s challenge. But Beijing is fighting back by political means. A closer look at the US president’s 2017 trade policy agenda and its ensuing initiatives reveals a pattern. His predecessor Barack Obama’s trade policy favored multilateral, comprehensive and ultra-regional deals such as the failed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, and the frozen Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). In contrast, Trump pushes for bilateral and more targeted deals.

Trump says Russia undermining China’s help on N KoreaUS President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that Russia was helping the North Korean regime get around a series of international sanctions, in effect negating the increased pressure China is putting on Pyongyang. “Russia is not helping us at all with North Korea,” Trump reportedly said in an interview with Reuters in the Oval Office. “What China is helping us with, Russia is denting. In other words, Russia is making up for some of what China is doing.”

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from Campus Reform

Students earned $11/hour to complain about Halloween costumesWashington State University hired four students last year to host workshops promoting social justice issues on campus, paying them $11/hour for roughly 10 hours of work per week. After a full semester, however, the students only appear to have hosted a single event: a workshop warning against "cultural appropriation" in Halloween costumes.

The trend continues, 2017 one of the hottest years on record2017 was once again one of the hottest years on record, ranked as the second-warmest by NASA and third-warmest by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The findings "continue the planet's long-term warming trend," according to NASA. A trend that is driven predominately by human activity through carbon dioxide emissions.

Most Americans can't cover a $1,000 emergencyLife happens: A broken-down car. A leaky roof. A broken bone. If you were hit with a $1,000 emergency, would you be able to cover it? For the majority of Americans, the answer is no. Only 39% of Americans say they would be able to pay for a $1,000 unplanned expense, according to new report from Bankrate.

A Federal Gas Tax Will Only Fuel Bureaucracy
In today’s dollars, the real gas tax rate has risen substantially since the early 1980s. The Trump administration will release its long-awaited infrastructure plan in coming weeks. The plan is expected to include $200 billion over 10 years of federal funding. Where will the money come from? The president has pondered raising the federal gas tax. Revenues from the 18.4 cent-per-gallon federal gas tax go into the Highway Trust Fund and are then dished out to the states. But 98 percent of U.S. streets and highways are owned by state and local governments, and the owners should do the funding.

Stop Calling It an Opioid Crisis
The problem will not get better — it will only get worse — as long as we continue to call this an “opioid crisis.” The current title is too nonspecific. This is a crisis caused by drug prohibition — an unintended consequence of nonmedical drug users accessing the black market in drugs. Renaming the problem a “heroin and fentanyl crisis” might be a way to trigger a refocus.

WOW! Sara Carter Reveals FISA Memo Is So “Explosive” That It Could END Mueller Investigation
The House Intel panel’s passage of New York Republican Rep. Peter King’s motion to release the FISA abuse memo to fellow House members has rocked Washington, D.C. Lawmakers from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) have called for the classified memo’s immediate release. According to Fox News contributor Sara Carter, the contents of the memo are so “explosive,” that it could end special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe once and for all.

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from The Heritage Foundation

RIGHT BIAS, MIXED, think tank in Washington, D.C

This Bird Regulation Might Have Made You a Criminal. Not Anymore.
If you live someplace with a window, own a cat, or drive a car, then a recent change to a federal regulatory policy should come as a welcome relief. On Dec. 22, the Interior Department’s Office of the Solicitor published a memorandum (Memorandum M-37050) stating that it interprets a federal criminal law against “taking” or harming migratory birds to apply only to “direct and affirmative, purposeful actions.” That overturns the policy of previous administrations that, under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, individuals could be held criminally liable for virtually any accident that harms any of the approximately 1,000 bird species protected under the law.

There is a remarkable assumption behind the argument that the best—maybe the only—reason to have voted for Donald J. Trump was that he “was better than Hillary Clinton.” Supposedly this somehow distinguishes, and taints, the Election of 2016. It does not. That one candidate is likely to do better in office than the other is always the only good reason to give him your vote. Indeed, this is merely a description of what an election is.

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from The Liberty Review
[Information from this site may be unreliable.]

Liberal Professor Claims ‘Millions’ Died Because of Capitalism
A professor blamed capitalism for deaths during slavery, American Indian genocide and both world wars, according to a Wednesday report. Anthony Zenkus, who teaches graduate social work classes at Columbia University, made the remark and claimed that “Hitler was a capitalist,” Campus Reform reported.

Unions are Failing to Serve Both Teachers and Students
It is CEI’s contention that strong labor regulation, including collective bargaining mandates, is detrimental to general welfare, as it prioritizes the wants of union leaders and their supporters over the needs of other citizens. Lowell Gallaway and Jonathan Robe demonstrated this in our High Cost of Big Labor study (PDF), which calculated the deadweight loss of artificially increasing the cost of labor in unionized industries and thereby increasing the supply of labor in nonunionized sectors, in turn increasing unemployment. The study found significant hits to GDP and real per capita income in unionized states over half a century. As we said at the time, “Those conclusions provide a strong case for viewing the passage of the Wagner Act in 1935 as a case of causing long-term economic trauma.”

Members of Congress Explain Need for New HHS Conscience and Religious Freedom Division
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Civil Rights (OCR) hosted an event Thursday announcing their new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), and Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) all talked about why there was a need for the division, citing specific religious freedom violations that occurred under the Obama administration.